Our vision

“To grow the visitor economy in the Northern Territory to $2.2 billion by 2020 as measured by overnight visitor expenditure.”

As the Territory’s largest employing industry, estimated to employ directly and indirectly 16,000 Territorians or 13 per cent of the total NT workforce, growing the tourism industry is vital to building a bigger economy for the Territory. The ‘visitor economy’ which is supported by the tourism sector includes visitors who come for leisure, business events, corporate travel, to visit friends and relatives and other purposes.

Performance measurement

To monitor the overall effectiveness of the strategies outlined in Tourism Vision 2020, the Northern Territory's strategy for growth, Tourism NT has developed a set of broad indicators to measure the performance of the NT tourism industry. It incorporates a mix of key statistics, leading indicators from visitor surveys, industry investment and benchmarking. The four key performance groups that have been incorporated are:

Product: The character, attractiveness and satisfaction with the visitor experience will be measured through regular product and destination assessment.

Investment: Business confidence and performance will be measured through regular online tourism operator surveys. Broader investment activity will be monitored on an ongoing basis.

Demand: Key statistics such as visitor numbers, average spend and length of stay will continue to be measured through national surveys.

Tourism in context: Benchmarking against the overall performance of the other states will occur to account for impacts that are beyond the control of the Northern Territory.

Tourism NT will use these indicators to track performance against the targets articulated in the Operational Plan it develops each financial year in pursuit of the target articulated in Tourism Vision 2020.

An overview of performance of the tourism industry each year is contained in Tourism NT’s Annual Report. Regular research updates and additional insights on Northern Territory tourism are available on this website.